Hey everyone.
I've been a gamer since before I was born. My parents purchased an Atari 2600 before I was born and my mom played it the most while pregnant with me. At some point I became capable of playing myself. I recall playing Asteroids, Combat, Defender E.T., Missile Command, Pac Man and more. Later on I became a Nintendo kid with a subscription to Nintendo Power, followed by a Genesis, and a Playstation. Until that point PC games were limited to school options such as Oregon Trail.
It wasn't until Doom and Falcon that I started to transition to the PC Master Race. I somehow convinced my parents to pick up an IBM Aptiva where I started to cut my teeth on DOS and random games I would come across. The second PC we had was also an IBM Aptiva and came with Mechwarrior 2. This was when I finally started to get into online games. I still remember Mplayer and Kali.
Finally I started to run paper routes and cut grass prior to turning 16 to save a little money to buy my own PC. Shortly after getting my first job as a cook for Pizza Hut I was able to purchase my own machine with my own hard earned cash. It was an Alienware. Many years before Dell made that purchase. I called them up. Spoke with a sales guy. I knew what I wanted. Pentium 2 with a pair of Voodoo 2 in SLI. The thing was a beast, tower speakers, large monitor the best $2500 I'd ever spent. I learned basic web design at the time and I was able recoup my cost on it by doing some local websites (looking back they were horrible), along with gaming (Command and Conquer, Jane's games, Diablo and more).
Over time new hardware came out, new games stressed those Voodoo2s 3Dfx was dying. The TNT2 Ultra came out. Was my first upgrade. Followed by RAM. A hard drive. After that I lose track, full PC builds came along, I recall one of the ever popular Dragon cases. I won an Abit NF7-S 2.0 motherboard in a 2v2 WC3 tournament. I think I popularized the oversized mouse mat well before they actually existed (staples printer pad). Played massive amounts of Unreal Tournament.
Went to college.
Got sucked into WoW.
Became a Network Admin.
Got married.
Had a kid.
And anymore you can find me playing Overwatch, Battlefield 1, World of Warships and World of Tanks mostly.
My most recent build as of this year:
CPU: Intel i7-6700K
Cooling: Corsair H110i
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VIII GENE
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3000
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 (and a couple non-important random old drives)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 (was actually a step-up shortly after making the mistake of getting a 980ti FTW)
Case: Corsair 350D
PSU: Corsair AX860i
Keyboard: Razer Blackwidow Chroma Stealth
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Chroma
Webcam: Razer Stargazer
Mousepad: Razer Goliathus Extended Control Edition
Speakers: Logitech Z-640 5.1 (these are ancient, but still functional)
Headset: None at the moment, I have a nice directional lapel mic that I use instead and still leverage my speakers
Displays: 3 Dell U2212HM monitors (In the not too distant future my center monitor will be replaced with a 1440p 144hz variety)
My PC:
The 980ti has been replaced by the 1080 now, I'm just too lazy to take a new picture.
My office (shortly after moving in and before building the new PC):
Bonus hobby/work photos, my home network/lab:
I've been a gamer since before I was born. My parents purchased an Atari 2600 before I was born and my mom played it the most while pregnant with me. At some point I became capable of playing myself. I recall playing Asteroids, Combat, Defender E.T., Missile Command, Pac Man and more. Later on I became a Nintendo kid with a subscription to Nintendo Power, followed by a Genesis, and a Playstation. Until that point PC games were limited to school options such as Oregon Trail.
It wasn't until Doom and Falcon that I started to transition to the PC Master Race. I somehow convinced my parents to pick up an IBM Aptiva where I started to cut my teeth on DOS and random games I would come across. The second PC we had was also an IBM Aptiva and came with Mechwarrior 2. This was when I finally started to get into online games. I still remember Mplayer and Kali.
Finally I started to run paper routes and cut grass prior to turning 16 to save a little money to buy my own PC. Shortly after getting my first job as a cook for Pizza Hut I was able to purchase my own machine with my own hard earned cash. It was an Alienware. Many years before Dell made that purchase. I called them up. Spoke with a sales guy. I knew what I wanted. Pentium 2 with a pair of Voodoo 2 in SLI. The thing was a beast, tower speakers, large monitor the best $2500 I'd ever spent. I learned basic web design at the time and I was able recoup my cost on it by doing some local websites (looking back they were horrible), along with gaming (Command and Conquer, Jane's games, Diablo and more).
Over time new hardware came out, new games stressed those Voodoo2s 3Dfx was dying. The TNT2 Ultra came out. Was my first upgrade. Followed by RAM. A hard drive. After that I lose track, full PC builds came along, I recall one of the ever popular Dragon cases. I won an Abit NF7-S 2.0 motherboard in a 2v2 WC3 tournament. I think I popularized the oversized mouse mat well before they actually existed (staples printer pad). Played massive amounts of Unreal Tournament.
Went to college.
Got sucked into WoW.
Became a Network Admin.
Got married.
Had a kid.
And anymore you can find me playing Overwatch, Battlefield 1, World of Warships and World of Tanks mostly.
My most recent build as of this year:
CPU: Intel i7-6700K
Cooling: Corsair H110i
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VIII GENE
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3000
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 (and a couple non-important random old drives)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 (was actually a step-up shortly after making the mistake of getting a 980ti FTW)
Case: Corsair 350D
PSU: Corsair AX860i
Keyboard: Razer Blackwidow Chroma Stealth
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Chroma
Webcam: Razer Stargazer
Mousepad: Razer Goliathus Extended Control Edition
Speakers: Logitech Z-640 5.1 (these are ancient, but still functional)
Headset: None at the moment, I have a nice directional lapel mic that I use instead and still leverage my speakers
Displays: 3 Dell U2212HM monitors (In the not too distant future my center monitor will be replaced with a 1440p 144hz variety)
My PC:
The 980ti has been replaced by the 1080 now, I'm just too lazy to take a new picture.
My office (shortly after moving in and before building the new PC):
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Bonus hobby/work photos, my home network/lab:
 |  |
Hey there guys. CowPrince you're a beast man. I actually am very new to Pc Gaming but I love it. I built my first gaming Pc about a yr ago with a 2600k 16gb ram and a gigabyte mobo with a gtx 560ti. Two months later traded my 560ti for an h100i v2 cooler and bought a gtx 980 Strix oc from a friend for 275. Three months ago sold my whole set up and after falling head over heals in love with the custom PC movement. Got an i7 6700k oc'd to 4.5 Ghz with 1.31v, an Asus z170 Deluxe Motherboard, 32 gb 3200Mhz Dominator Platinum that I have oc'd to 3333Mhz. Gtx 1080 Ftw Hybrid, 256gb 950 pro m.2 all crammed into a sexy Corsair Carbide 400c case. 27" Asus 1440p 144hz display and a Razer Blackwidow Chroma kb and Naga Chroma mouse that I absolutely love. That I just learned how to use. Up until just under 2 months ago I used a controller, now I'll never pick up another one again in my life. I love Pc's and I'm perfectly happy driving my 22 yr old Isuzu Rodeo for the rest of my life and blowing all my money on tech stuff Lol.*
